IOF Official Warns: Tunnels under Northern Border Pose ‘Major Threat’

December 16, 2019

A senior Israeli official said that tunnels will play a major part in the next armed conflict on the Zionist entity’s northern and southern border.

Maj. Gen. Mickey Edelstein, who heads the military’s counter-tunnel warfare development efforts, described the tunnels as serious threat which the occupation military is gearing up to counter.

He said that some of the tactics already developed for underground warfare will soon become obsolete, as quoted by “Israel Hayom”.

“There is a need to change many of the basic assumptions. The enemy wants to force us to operate above and below ground at the same time, in order to exhaust us and lead to further attacks against civilians,” he told a symposium titled “Subterranean Challenges in War and Peace” on Sunday.

Edelstein said that with respect to urban warfare, buildings that have been cleared of fighters could still pose a risk due to tunnels.

“If in the past there was the question of whether we could counter the terror tunnels without entering them – we won’t have this privilege in the future. There is a 100% chance that we will face the challenge of the tunnels in Gaza and in Lebanon.”

He further noted that the threat posed by tunnels in the northern sector is “unequivocal”.

“Every village has tunnels,” he said, adding that the occupation military is sparing no effort to meet this challenge.

“Tunnel warfare reduced nearly all the advantaged you have when fighting above ground to almost zero, be it with respect to firepower, engaging the enemy, and the troops’ movement,” he explained.

“One of the problems is that we don’t have the intelligence capability to discern the location of each and every tunnel. No one unit can do handle locating a tunnel and neutralize it – we need an entire strategic lineup for that,” the Israeli general said.

Source: Israeli media